quisite grapes, melons, pears, and apples, that they were exported to Persia, and even to Hindustan Marcanda answers to the modern Samarcand. (Br choff und Möller, Wörterb. der Geogr., p. 925. — Nai te-Brun, Geogr., vol. 2, p. 378, Am. ed.) SOGDIANUS, a natural son of Artaxerxes Longine nus, who murdered his brother Xerxes. He was te throned, however, in his turn by Ochus, after a regu of only six months and fifteen days, and was suffocand in ashes according to the Persian custom. (Diod. Ex.. 12, 71.-Ctes., 47, seqq.) SOL, the Sun. (Vid. Apollo, Hercules, Mithms, &c.) duct during the Anarchy, must have been accounted | collection of the acts of councils. Both reproaches, one of the party of the city, since he remained there however, are devoid of foundation.-The best ed. throughout the whole period, and that the prosecutors of his history is that of Reading, Cant., 1720, fol were probably able to give evidence of many express- SOGDIANA, a country of Upper Asia, between the ions apparently unfavourable to democracy, which had Jaxartes and Oxus, lying to the west of Scythia ets fallen from him in his manifold conversations, we can- Imaum, from which it is separated by the range of not be surprised that the verdict was against him, but Imaus. It is bounded on the north by the Jaxares, rather, as he himself professed to be, that the votes of and on the south by the Oxus, and appears to cons the judges were almost equally divided. It appears, spond at the present day to northern Bucharey, the indeed, most likely, that if his defence had been con- country of the Usbeck Tartars, a part of the county ducted in the usual manner, he would have been ac- of Pelur and of Little Thibet. The chief range of quitted; and that, even after the conviction, he would mountains in this tract was called the Sogdian, and not have been condemned to death if he had not pro- traversed the whole region between the Oxus and Jarvoked the anger of the court by a deportment which artes. Among the tribes in this quarter may be eas must have been interpreted as a sign of profound con- merated the Sogdiani, the Pæsica, the Iatii, the Te tempt or of insolent defiance. When the verdict had chori, &c., along the Sogdian Mountains; the Mardybeen given, the prisoner was entitled to speak in miti- eni in what is now the land of the Usbeck Tanas; gation of the penalty proposed by the prosecutor, and the Oxiani and Chorasmii along the Oxus; the Dep to assign another for the court to decide upon. Soc- siani, at the sources of the Jaxartes, &c. In the mi rates is represented as not only disdaining to depre- dle ages, Sogdiana became famous, under the An cate its severity by such appeals as were usually made name of Soghd, for its great fertility, and was repre in the Athenian tribunals to the feelings of the jurors, sented as a country eight days' journey in length, but as demanding a reward and honour instead of the full of gardens, groves, cornfields, &c. The territory punishment of a malefactor; and he was at last only around Samarcand, in particular, the Arabian geog induced by the persuasions and offers of his friends to phers describe as a terrestrial paradise. The net val name a trifling pecuniary mulct. The execution of hisley of Soghd presented so great an abundance of er sentence was delayed by the departure of the Theoris, the sacred vessel which carried the yearly offerings of the Athenians to Delos. From the moment that the priest of Apollo had crowned its stern with laurel until its return, the law required that the city should be kept pure from all pollution, and, therefore, that no criminal should be put to death. The opening ceremony had taken place on the day before the trial of Socrates, and thirty days elapsed before the Theoris again sailed into the Piræus. During this interval some of his wealthy friends pressed him to take advantage of the means of escape which they could easily have procured for him. But he refused to prolong a life which was so near to its natural close-for he was little less than seventy years old-by a breach of the laws, which he had never violated, and in defence of which he had before braved death; and his attachment to Athens was so strong that life had no charms for him in a foreign land. His imprisonment was cheered by the society of his friends, and was probably spent chiefly in conversation of a more than usually clevated strain. When the summons came, he drank the fatal cup of hemlock in the midst of his weeping friends, with as much composure, and as little regret, as the last draught of a long and cheerful banquet. The sorrow which the Athenians are said to have manifested for his death, by signs of public mourning, and by the punishments inflicted on his prosecutors, seems not to be so well attested as the alarm it excited among his most eminent disciples, who perhaps considered it as the signal of a general persecution, and are said to have taken refuge at Megara and other cities. (Diog. Laert., 2, 19, seqq.-Enfield, Hist. Philos., vol. 4, p. 164, seqq.-Ritter, Hist. Philos., vol. 2, p. 1, 16, seqq.-Thirlwall's Greece, vol. 4, p. 265, seqq.)-II. Surnamed Scholasticus, an ecclesiastical historian, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century. He was a native of Constantinople, and a pupil of the grammarians Ammonius and Helladius. Socrates wrote an ecclesiastical history in seven books, from 306 to 439 A.D. He at first took for his guide the work of Rufinus; but having afterward perceived, from the works of Athanasius and from the correspondence of other fathers of the church, that Rufinus had fallen into great errors, he retouched the first two books of his history. It is an exact and judicious work, and is written with great simplicity. The severely orthodox have charged him with leaning to the opinions of the Novatians, and at other times with being led away by a certain Sabinus, who made a SOLĪNUS, C. JULIUS, a Latin writer, whose period is unknown. Some critics place him in the midde of the second century; while others make him etttemporary with the Emperor Heliogabalus, because they find that this prince had for a colleague, in his first consulship, a certain Adventus, and Solinus deacates his work to a friend of the same name. This production is entitled Polyhistor, and is divided am fifty-six, or, according to other editions, seventy chapters. It is a collection of various notices, prine pay geographical, taken from different authors, mary of whom are now lost, but particularly from Pliny, whose text may perhaps be corrected from this abridgment Salmasius has proved, as far as things of this nature are susceptible of proof, that Solinus published two editions of his work, the first under the title of Celer tanea rerum memorabilium, and the other, re-touched and enlarged, under that of Polyhistor. These two editions have been blended and confounded together by the copyists. We have also twenty-two verses, a poem, by Solinus, entitled Pontica. (Burmann, Anthol. Lat., vol. 2, p. 383.)-The best edition of the Polyhistor is that of Salmasius (Saumaise), Traj, 1689, 2 vols. 8vo. SOLIS FONS, a celebrated fountain in Africa. (Vid Ammon.) SOLOE, I. a city of Cyprus, on the northern shore of the island, and southwest of the promontery Crommyon. The inhabitants were called Solni, whence some later writers give the name of the city as Soli It was founded by an Athenian colony (Strabo, 683), and Solon is mentioned by Herodotus as having visited Philocyprus, the tyrant of the place, and having praised him in his verse (5, 113). Plutarch informs us that, at the time of Solon's arrival, Philocyprus reigned over a small city near the river Clarius, in a strong situation indeed, but in a very indifferent soil As there was an agreeable plain below, Solon per- | powerful neighbours. Even the little state of Megara suaded him to raise there a larger and more pleasant city, and to transfer thither the inhabitants of the other. He also assisted in laying out the whole, and building it in the best manner for convenience and defence, so that Philocyprus shortly had it peopled in such a manner as to excite the envy of the neighbouring princes: and, therefore, though the former city was called Epia, yet, in honour of Solon, he called the new one Soli. This story, however, appears to want confirmation, the more particularly, as Herodotus, who is fond of relating such things, makes no mention of the matter. It is more than probable that the anecdote owed its origin to the accidental similarity between the name of Solon and that of the city. Pococke found traces of the ancient place, which still bore the name of Solea (vol. 2, p. 324).-The inhabitants of this city, as well as those of Soloe in Cilicia, were charged with speaking very ungrammatical Greek, whence the term Solecism (Zohokioμós), to denote any gross violation of the idiom of a language. (Suidas, s. v. Zóλo1.) II. A city of Cilicia Campestris, near the mouth of the river Lamus. It was founded by an Argive coleny, strengthened by settlers from the city of Lindus in Rhodes. By intermingling with the rude Cilicians, the inhabitants so far corrupted their own dialect as to give rise to the term Solecism (Zoλoikioμós), to denote any violation of the idiom of a language. (Vid. Soloe I.) It is doubtful whether the term in question belongs properly to the city we are now considering, or the one in Cyprus; the greater number of authorities appear to be in favour of the former. Soloe suffered severely from Tigranes, king of Armenia, who wrested the greater part of Syria, and also Cilicia, from the Seleucida. He carried the inhabitants of the place to Tigranocerta, his Armenian capital, in order to introduce there European culture. Pompey, therefore, found Soloe nearly desolate in his visit to these parts during the war with the pirates, and established here the remainder of the latter after they were conquered. The city was henceforward known, besides its own name, by that of Pompeiopolis. (Strab., 671.-Appian, Bell. Mithrad., 105.)-This city was the birthplace of Chrysippus, Menander, and Aratus. (Mela, 1, 13.-Strabo, l. c.) Captain Beaufort gives a detailed account of the topography and remains of this interesting city. (Karamania, p. 261, seqq.) Mezetln is the name which most of the natives give to the modern site. (Beaufort, Ib., p. 266.-Mannert, Geogr., vol. 6, pt. 2, p. 67.) was at this time a formidable enemy. It had succeeded in wresting the island of Salamis from the Athenians, who had been repeatedly baffled in their attempts to recover what they esteemed their rightful possession. The losses they had sustained in this tedious war had broken their spirit, and had driven them to the resolution of abandoning for ever the assertion of their claims. A decree had been passed, which, under penalty of death, forbade any one so much as to propose the renewal of the desperate undertaking. Solon, who was himself a native of Salamis, and was, perhaps, connected by various ties with the island, was indignant at this pusillanimous policy; and he devised an extraordinary plan for rousing his countrymen from their despondency. He was endowed by nature with a happy poetical talent, of which some specimens are still extant in the fragments of his numerous works; which, though they never rise to a very high degree of beauty, possess the charm of a vigorous and graceful simplicity. He now composed a poem on the loss of Salamis, which Plutarch praises as one of his most ingenious productions. To elude the prohibition, he assumed the demeanour of a madman; and, rushing into the market-place, mounted the stone from which the heralds were used to make their proclamations, and recited his poem to the bystanders. It contained a vehement expostulation on the disgrace which the Athenian name had incurred, and a summons to take the field again, and vindicate their right to the lovely island. The hearers caught the poet's enthusiasm, which was seconded by the applause of his friends, and particularly by the eloquence of his young kinsman Pisistratus. The restraining law was repealed, and it was resolved once more to try the fortune of arms. Solon not only inspired his countrymen with hope, but led them to victory, aided in the camp, as in the city, by the genius of Pisistratus. The stratagem with which he attacked the Megarians is variously related; but he is said to have finished the campaign by a single blow, and certainly succeeded in speedily recovering the island. We may even conclude that the Athenians at the same time made themselves masters of the port of Megara Nisæa, since it is said to have been soon after reconquered by the Megarians. The reputation which Solon acquired by this enterprise was heightened, and more widely diffused throughout Greece by the part he took in the Sacred War, which ended with the destruction of Cirrha. But already, before this, he had gained the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and had begun to exert his influence in healing their intestine divisions. The outcry against Megacles and his associates SOLON, a celebrated Athenian lawgiver, and one of in the massacre had risen so high, that it became evthe seven sages of Greece. According to the most ident that quiet could never be restored until they had authentic accounts, he was the son of Execestides, expiated their offence, and had delivered the city from and was sprung from the line of Codrus. His father the curse which they seemed to have brought upon it. had reduced his fortune by his imprudent liberality; Solon, with the assistance of the most moderate noand Solon, in his youth, is said to have been compelled, bles, prevailed on the party of Megacles to submit in order to repair the decay of his patrimony, to em- their cause to the decision of an impartial tribunal. bark in commercial adventures-a mode of acquiring Under such circumstances their condemnation was inwealth which was not disdained by men of the highest evitable: those who had survived went into exile, and birth, as it frequently afforded them the means of form- the bones of the deceased were taken out of their ing honourable alliances in foreign countries, and even graves and transported beyond the frontier. In the of raising themselves to princely rank as the founders mean while the Megarians had not relinquished their of colonies. It was, however, undoubtedly not more pretensions to Salamis, and they took advantage of the desire of affluence than the thirst of knowledge the troubles which occupied the attention of the Athethat impelled Solon to seek distant shores; and the nians to dislodge their garrison from Nisæa, and to most valuable fruit of his travels was the experience reconquer the island, where five hundred Athenian he collected of men, manners, and institutions. We colonists, who had voluntarily shared Solon's first exare unable to ascertain the precise time at which he pedition, had been rewarded with an allotment of returned to settle in Athens; but if, as is most prob- lands, which gave them a predominant influence in able, it was in the period following Cylon's conspira- the government. It seems probable that it was after cy, he found his country in a deplorable condition, this event that the two states, seeing no prospect of distracted within by the contests of exasperated par- terminating by arms a warfare subject to such vicissities, and scarcely able to resist the attacks of its least | tudes, and equally harassing to both, now that their SOLIS, a promontory on the western coast of Mauritania Tingitana, now Cape Cantin. (Herod., 2, 32. -Id., 4, 43.) reduced to actual slavery. The smaller proprietors, impoverished by bad times or casual disasters, were compelled to borrow money at high interest, and to mortgage their lands to the rich, or to receive them again as tenants upon the same hard terms as were imposed upon those who cultivated the estates of the great land-owners. According to the laws made by the nobles, the insolvent debtor might be seized by his creditor and sold into slavery; or torn from his home and condemned to end his days in the service of a foreign master, or driven to the still harder ecessity of selling his own children. The eyes of Selon had frequently been struck with the dismal monuments of aristocratical oppression scattered over the fields of Attica, in the stone-posts, which marked that what was once a property had become a pledge, and that its former owner had lost his independence, and was in danger of sinking into a still more degaded and miserable condition; and such spectacles undoubtedly moved him, no less than that which roused the holy indignation of the elder Gracchus against the Roman grandees. (Plut., Tib. Gracch., c. 8.) Those who groaned under this tyranny were only eager for a change, and cared little about the means by which it might be effected. But the population of Attica was not simply composed of these two classes. An ancient geographical division of the country, which, from time immemorial, had determined the pursuits and the character of its inhabitants, now separated them into three distinct parties (ediɛiç or Пediaio, lowland honour had been satisfied by alternate victories, agreed | share of political rights, but held even their personal to refer their claims to arbitration. At their request freedom by a precarious tenure, and were frequently the Lacedæmonians appointed five commissioners to try the cause. Solon, who was the chief spokesman on the Athenian side, maintained their title on the ground of ancient possession, by arguments which, though they never silenced the Megarians, appear to have convinced the arbitrators. The strongest seem to have been derived from the Athenian customs, of which he pointed out traces in the mode of interment observed in Salamis, as well as inscriptions on the tombs, which attested the Attic origin of the persons they commemorated. He is said also to have adduced the authority of the Homeric catalogue of the Grecian fleet, by forging a line which described Ajax as ranging the ships which he brought from Salamis in the Athenian station; and he interpreted some oracular verses, which spoke of Salamis as an Ionian island, in a similar sense. Modern criticism would not have been much better satisfied with the plea, which he grounded on the Attic tradition, that the sons of the same hero had settled in Attica, and had been adopted as Athenian citizens, and, in return, had transferred their hereditary dominion over the island to their new countrymen. The weight, however, of all these arguments determined the issue in favour of the Athenians; and it seems more probable that the Megarians acquiesced in a decision to which they had themselves appealed, than that, as Plutarch represents, they almost immediately renewed hostilities. Party feuds continued to rage with unabated violence at Athens. The removal of the men whom public opinion had denounced as objects of divine wrath, was only a pre-ers; Aiáкpiot, highlanders; and Пlapakot, the men liminary step towards the restoration of tranquillity; but the evil was seated much deeper, and required a different kind of remedy, which was only to be found in a new organization of the state. This, it is probable, Solon already meditated, as he must long have perceived its necessity. But he saw that, before it could be accomplished, the minds of men must be brought into a frame fitted for its reception, and that this could only be done with the aid of religion. There were superstitious fears to be stilled, angry passions to be soothed, barbarous usages, hallowed by long prescription, to be abolished; and even the authority of Solon was not of itself sufficient for these purposes. He therefore looked abroad for a coadjutor, and fame directed his view to a man peculiarly qualified to meet the extraordinary emergency. This was no other than the famous Epimenides, whom his contemporaries regarded as a being of a superior nature, and who, even to us, appears in a mysterious, or, at least, an ambiguous light, from our inability to decide how far he himself partook in the general opinion which ascribed to him an intimate connexion with higher powers. This person was publicly invited to Athens, to exert his marvellous powers on behalf of the distracted city; and, when his work was accomplished, he was dismissed with tokens of the warmest gratitude. (Vid. Epimenides.) But, though the visit of Epimenides was attended with the most salutary consequences, so far as it applied a suitable remedy to evils which were entirely seated in the imagination, and, though it may have wrought still happier effects by calming, soothing, and opening hearts which had before only beaten with wild and malignant passions, still it had not produced any real change in the state of things, but had, at the utmost, only prepared the way for one. This work remained to be achieved by Solon. The government had long been in the hands of men who appear to have wielded it only as an instrument for aggrandizing and enriching themselves. They had reduced a great part of the class whose industry was employed in the labours of agriculture to a state of abject dependance, in which they were not only debarred from all but, perhaps, a merely nominal of the coast), animated each by its peculiar interests, views, and feelings. The possessions of the nobles lay chiefly in the plains. As a body, they desired the continuance of the existing state of things, on which their power and exclusive privileges depended; but there were among them some moderate men, who were willing to make concessions to prudence, if not to justice, and to resign a part for the sake of secu ring the rest. The inhabitants of the highlands, in the eastern and northern parts of Attica, do not seem to have suffered any of the evils inflicted on the lowland peasantry; but, though independent, they were probably, for the most part, poor, and generally wished for a revolution which should place them on a level with the rich. Uniting their cause with that of the oppressed, they called for a thorough redress of griev ances, by reducing, namely, that enormous inequality of possessions, which was the source of degradation and misery to them and their fellows. (Plut., Sol, 13, 29.) The men of the coast, who probably composed a main part of that class which subsisted by trade, by the exercise of the mechanical arts, and perhaps by the working of the mines, and now included a considerable share of affluence and intelligence, were averse to violent measures, but were desirous of a reform in the constitution, which should promote the prosperity of the country by removing all grounds of reasonable complaint, and should admit a larger number to the enjoyment of those rights which were now engrossed and abused by a few. The people in general felt the need of a leader, and would have preferred even the despotic rule of one man to the tyranny of their many lords. As Solon belonged to the nobil ity by birth and station, and had recommended himself to the people by the proofs he had shown of activity, prudence, justice, and humanity, he was chosen, with the unanimous consent of all parties, to mediate between them, and arbitrate their quarrels, as the person most capable of remedying the disorders of the state; and, under the title of archon, was invested with full authority to frame a new constitution and a new code of laws (Ol. 46.3, B.C. 594). As such an office, under such circumstances, conferred disguised the violence of this proceeding under a soft and attractive mien. It does not appear that the ancients saw anything to censure in his conduct according to either view. But the example of Solon cannot fairly be pleaded by those who contend that either pediency. He must be considered as an arbitrator, to whom all the parties interested submitted their claims, with the avowed intent that they should be decided by him, not upon the footing of legal right, but according to his own view of the public interest. It was in this light that he himself regarded his office, and he appears to have discharged it faithfully and discreetly. The strongest proof of the wisdom and equity of his measures is, that they subjected him to obloquy from the violent spirits of both the extreme parties. But their murmurs were soon drowned in the general approbation with which the disburdening ordinance was received; it was celebrated with a solemn festival; and Solon was encouraged, by the strongest assurances of the increased confidence of his fellow-citizens, to proceed with his work; and he now entered on the second and more difficult part of his task. He began by repealing all the laws of Draco, except those which concerned the repression of bloodshed, which were, in fact, customs hallowed by time and by religion, and had been retained, not introduced, by his predecessor. As a natural consequence, perhaps, of this meas almost unlimited power, and an ambitious man might | having entirely cancelled all debts, and as having only easily have abused it to make himself master of the state, Solon's friends exhorted him to seize the opportunity of becoming tyrant of Athens; and they were not at a loss for fair arguments to colour their foul advice, reminding him of recent instances-of Tynnondas in Euboea, and Pittacus at Mytilene, who had ex-public or private faith may be rightly sacrificed to exercised a sovereignty over their fellow-citizens without forfeiting their love. Solon saw through their sophistry, and was not tempted by it to betray the sacred trust reposed in him; but, satisfied with the approbation of his own conscience and the esteem of his countrymen, instead of harbouring schemes of self-aggrandizement, he bent all his thoughts and energies to the execution of the great task which he had undertaken. This task consisted of two main parts: the first and most pressing business was to relieve the present distress of the commonalty; the next to provide against the recurrence of like evils, by regulating the rights of all the citizens according to equitable principles, and fixing them on a permanent basis. In proceeding to the first part of his undertaking, Solon held a middle course between the two extremes-those who wished to keep all, and those who were for taking everything away. While he resisted the reckless and extravagant demands of those who desired all debts to be cancelled, and the lands of the rich to be confiscated and parcelled out among the poor, he met the reasonable expectations of the public by his disburdening ordinance (Leioúx0ɛia), and relieved the debt-ure, he published an amnesty, or act of grace, which or, partly by a reduction of the rate of interest, which restored those citizens who had been deprived of their was probably made retrospective, and thus, in many franchise for lighter offences, and recalled those who cases, would wipe off a great part of the debt, and had been forced into exile; and it seems probable that partly by lowering the standard of the silver coinage, this indulgence was extended to the house of Megaso that the debtor saved more than one fourth in ev- cles, the Alcmeonids, as they were called from a reery payment. (Plut., Sol., 15.-Vid. Boeckh, Staatsh., mote ancestor, the third in descent from Nestor, and 2, p. 360.) He likewise released the pledged lands to the partners of his guilt and punishment: the city, from their encumbrances, and restored them in full now purified and tranquillized, might be supposed to property to their owners; though it does not seem cer- be no longer either polluted or endangered by their tain whether this was one of the express objects of presence; and it was always liable to be disturbed by the measure, or only one of the consequences which their machinations so long as they remained in banit involved. Finally, he abolished the inhuman law ishment. The four ancient tribes were retained, with which enabled the creditor to enslave his debtor, and all their subdivisions; but it seems probable that Sorestored those who were pining at home in such bond-lon admitted a number of new citizens; for it is said age to immediate liberty; and it would seem that he that he invited foreigners to Athens by this boon, compelled those who had sold their debtors into for- though he confined it to such as settled their whole eign countries to procure their freedom at their own family and substance, and had dissolved their connexexpense. The debt itself, in such cases, was of ion with their native land. The distinguishing feature course held to be extinguished. Solon himself, in a of the new constitution was the substitution of properpoem which he afterward composed on the subject of ty for birth, as a title to the honours and offices of the his legislation, spoke with a becoming pride of the state. (Compare Niebuhr, Rom. Hist., 2, 305, 2d ed., happy change which this measure had wrought in the Camb. trans.) This change, though its consequences face of Attica, of the numerous citizens whose lands were of infinite importance, would not appear so viohe had discharged, and whose persons he had eman-lent or momentous to the generation which witnesscipated, and brought back from hopeless slavery in strange lands. He was only unfortunate in bestowing his confidence on persons who were incapable of imitating his virtue, and who abused his intimacy. At the time when all men were uncertain as to his intentions, and no kind of property could be thought secure, he privately informed three of his friends of his determination not to touch the estates of the land-owners, but only to reduce the amount of debt. He had afterward the vexation of discovering, that the men to whom he had intrusted this secret had been base enough to take advantage of it, by making large purchases of land-which at such a juncture bore, no doubt, a very low price-with borrowed money. Fortunately for his fame, the state of his private affairs was such as to exempt him from all suspicion of having had any share in this sordid transaction. He had himself a considerable sum out at interest, and was a loser in proportion by his own enactment. This seems the most probable and accurate account of Solon's measures of relief. There was, however, another, adopted by some ancient writers, which represented him as The ed it, since at this time these two claims general- of others which had hitherto been reserved to the nobles; -anchors, as Plutarch expresses it, on which the ves they were also destined to fill the highest commands sel of state might ride safely in every storm. These in the army, as in later times, when Athens became a were the two councils of the Four Hundred and the maritime power, they did in the fleet. Some lower Areopagus. The institution of the council of the offices were undoubtedly left open to the second and Four Hundred was uniformly attributed to Solon; and, third class, though we are unable to define the extent if this opinion be correct, which has, however, been of their privileges, or to ascertain whether, in their po- made the subject of some dispute, then, according to litical rights, one had any advantage over the other. the theory of Solon's constitution, the assembly of the They were at least distinguished from each other by people will appear to have been little more than the the mode of their military service; the one furnishing organ of that council, as it could only act upon the the cavalry, the other the heavy-armed infantry. But, proposition laid before it by the latter. But the jedifor their exclusion from the dignities occupied by the cial power which Solon had lodged in the hands of the wealthy few, they received a compensation in the people was the most powerful instrument on which comparative lightness of their burdens. They were he relied for correcting all abuses and remedying all assessed, not in exact proportion to the amount of mischiefs that might arise out of the working of his their incomes, but at a much lower rate; the nominal constitution. A body of 6000 citizens was every year value of their property being for this purpose reduced created by lot to form a supreme court, called Heliza, below the truth, that of the knights by one sixth, that which was divided into several smaller ones, not limit of the third class by one third. The fourth class was ed to any precise number of persons. The qualifice excluded from all share in the magistracy, and from tions required for this were the same with those which the honours and duties of the full-armed warrior, the gave admission into the general assembly, except that expense of which would, in general, exceed their means: the members of the former might not be under the age by land they served only as light troops; in later times of thirty. It was therefore, in fact, a select portion they manned the fleets. In return, they were exempt- the latter, in which the powers of the larger body were ed from all direct contributions, and they were permit-concentrated, and exercised under a judicial form. ted to take a part in the popular assembly, as well as Passing over the other features of the Athenian con in the exercise of those judicial powers which were stitution, as settled by Solon, on which our limits will now placed in the hands of the people. We shall not allow us to dwell, we proceed at once to the reshortly have occasion to observe how amply this boon mainder of his history. Solon was not one of those compensated for the loss of all the privileges that were reformers who dream that they have put an end to inwithheld from them. Solon's classification takes no novation, and that the changes they have wrought are notice of any other than landed property; yet, as the exempt from the general condition of mutability. But example of Solon himself seems to prove that Attica the very provisions which he made for the continual must already have carried on some foreign trade, it is revision and amendment of his laws, seems to show not unlikely that there were fortunes of this kind equal the improbability of Plutarch's account: that be e to those which gave admission to the higher classes. acted them to remain in force for no more than a ceBut it can hardly be supposed that they placed their tury. They were inscribed on wooden tablets, arpossessors on a level with the owners of the soil; it ranged in pyramidal blocks turning on an axis; which is more probable that these, together with the newly- were kept at first in the Acropolis, but were afteradopted citizens, without regard to their various de- ward, for more convenient inspection, brought down grees of affluence, were all included in the lowest to the Prytaneum. According to Plutarch, Solon, af class. Solon's system then made room for all free-ter the completion of his work, found himself exposed men, but assigned to them different places, varying to such incessant vexation from the questions of the with their visible means of serving the state. His curious and the cavils of the discontented, that he general aim in the distribution of power, as he himself obtained permission to withdraw from Athens for ten explains it in a fragment which Plutarch has preserved years, and set out on the travels in which he visited from one of his poems, was to give such a share to the Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Egypt, collecting and dif commonalty as would enable it to protect itself, and to fusing knowledge, and everywhere leaving traces of the wealthy as much as was necessary for retaining his presence in visible monuments or in the men their dignity; in other words, for ruling the people ories of men. But there is some difficulty in reconci without the means of oppressing it. He threw his ling this story with chronology, since it supposes him strong shield, he says, over both, and permitted neither to have found Croesus in Lydia, who did not mount to gain an unjust advantage. The magistrates, though the throne within twenty or thirty years after; and the elected upon a different qualification, retained their an- alleged occasion of the journey is very doubtful, though cient authority; but they were now responsible for it is in substance the same with that assigned by Herod. the exercise of it, not to their own body, but to the otus. It is probable that Solon remained for several governed. The judicial functions of the archons were years at Athens, to observe the practical effect of he perhaps preserved nearly in their full extent; but ap-institutions, and to second their operation by his per peals were allowed from their jurisdiction to courts sonal influence. He was, undoubtedly, well aware numerously composed, and filled indiscriminately from how little the letter of a political system can avail all classes. (Plut., Sol., 18.) Solon could not fore- til its practice has become familiar, and its principles see the change of circumstances by which this right of appeal became the instrument of overthrowing the equilibrium which he hoped to have established on a solid basis, when that which he had designed to exercise an extraordinary jurisdiction became an ordinary tribunal, which drew almost all causes to itself, and overruled every other power in the state. He seems to have thought that, while he provided sufficiently for the security of the commonalty by permitting the lowest of its members to vote in the popular assembly, and to sit in judgment on cases in which the parties were dissatisfied with the ordinary modes of proceeding, he had also ensured the stability of his new order of things by two institutions, which appeared to be sufficient guards against the sallies of democratical extravagance have gained a hold on the opinions and feelings of the people, and that this must be a gradual process, and liable to interruption and disturbance. Hence t could not greatly disappoint or afflict him to bear voices raised from time to time against himself, and to perceive that his views were not generally or fully comprehended. But he may at length have thought it prudent to retire for a season from the public eve the better to maintain his dignity and popularity; and, as he himself declared, that age, while it crept thot him, still found him continually learning, we need not be surprised if, at an unusually late period of life, be set out on a long course of travels. On his return, be found that faction had been actively labouring to per vert and undo his work, and was compelled eventually |